My Uncle Edel G. made a poem for her. It was so sweet of him that I had to include it in the album for Oona to read when she grows older. He's supposed to be gruff and tuff but then he goes all intellectual gooey like this!

The Second Page

Here was the eve of and the day of the big event! I was already having contractions early during the week but it was only on Tuesday that I felt pain. It was still manageable but we already called our OB and was timing it to the minute.

I was already cranky and the taxi driver was no help. he was driving like a maniac, if I weren't about to give birth, I would have strangled him with the steering wheel.

The Third Page

By this time, RF and I were both groggy. I was given medicine because I had incredibly high blood pressure. The doctors were waiting for it to go down. Meanwhile, I was still a few cms closed and they were threatening to send me home to wait it out because they couldn't induce me and risk having a seizure.

RF on the other hand, came straight from night shift to a cranky wife having contractions. So, I had him sleep while I was busy doing deep breathing.

I told him I'd just wake him up when it was time to hold my hand while I screamed at him and he can emote in all Lamaze earnestness (Breathe! Hoo! Hoo! Huff! Huff!).

The Fourth Page

And there she is! Our little bundle!

It took me a few minutes and two pushes to get her out. RF was a bit put out because he wasn't able to emote. He said it happened so quickly, he had no time to feel the emotion of the moment when he heard Oona cry.

It went according to routine. By this time, I was as high as a kite with the lovely epidural. RF took longer to get dressed in scrubs andwe had to wait for him because I refused to push without him. Crazy Mama.

All I could say was "Oh my God! Oh my God!", over and over again. RF on the other hand was teary eyed, following the nurses around and trying to take pictures. I told him to make sure they put the tags on her and not lose our baby because I didn't spend nine months carrying her around just to lose her!

This album should have taken me less time because all I had to do was basically put in pictures and titling. However, because it was so easy to do, I ended up taking longer: I put in more photos and text, doubling the number of pages in the album and tweaking the second set of layouts to make them a little different from the first set.

There's that thing they say at home about people like me, that we probably have a mole on our feet that's why we can't stay in one place at any given time. Well, my feet are as mole-free as it can get, but I think my soul's feet are another matter.

For Weekend Wanderings, a blog to chronicle my wanderlust throughout the years, I made this graphic. I know it's a little simple than the other graphics I've been posting lately. But as of now, the blog's pretty new so my mind was more on writing for it than making a digiscrap layout.

I have yet to make a banner for the blog too, as I am still thinking about the whole look of the page. But to be sure, when I'm done, I'll post it here as well.

This happened beacuse we just had way too much footage of Oona being the triggerhappy proud parents of this little girl. We hardly knew what to do with the batches of pictures we accumulated.

I was surfing through arts and crafts websites to see what I could see, when I came across digital scrapbooking.

When it came to photographs, I was a glue-and-scissors kind of girl and it never crossed my mind that I could do this digitally. I was calling myself all kinds of stoofid because I used to jazz up static pictures with graphics in my video editing days! Duh! Why didn't I think of that in the first place?!My creative mojo really IS on an all time low!

But where to start, where to start? I couldn't possibly be making ribbons, buttons and stuff from scratch! It would take me too long and I was stumped for design. (Really no mojo to speak of).

It was after beating myself up for running out of creative juice that the universe pointed me in the direction of ScrapFlair. Maybe the universe got sick of my self-pity because not only was it a free downloadable program, ScrapFlair had ready-made templates and elements that were included in the package!

It helps that you join the online community as well even if as a non-member, you can still read through the posts under a lot of helpful topics. The forum posts are very helpful and informative. As a member though, you can post your own questions, ask help for your specific concerns regarding tips and tricks and post in your own gallery to get feedback. You also get an email newsletter with what's new at the site and new kits that the designers launched.

I'm glad everything (except layout templates) are in a format that's editable. I wanted greater elbow-room so I ended up using Adobe Photoshop to make my own layouts, to resize and add effects to the elements themselves.

Since I wanted to add a lot more stuff to the scrapbook I was making, I had to make some of my own "stickers", labels and other graphics.

I also mixed in other elements I downloaded from other design templates.

Using ScrapFlair is a great way to get started on digital scrapbooking. This was all I needed to get me out of the creative funk I was having. From then on, I was able to move on to other projects using other resources that the scrapbooking community selflessly share!

I was nervous because less than half of the people we'd invited had RSVP'd and most of those were regrets. What in the world were we to do with 100 pax worth of food?! So using the photo from the first draft, I flipped the layout to come up with this. I was sure the others had forgotten that the event was nearly upon us.

Thinking up witticisms like in the godparent invite was a challenge though. So I ended up with something a little ordinary compared to the first salvo.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, the good news is that most of whom I sent this to responded. I even posted this as an event on Facebook just to cover all the bases.

For the devoted Daddy. Coming straight from a perpetual night shift, RF would bring our newborn to the rooftop of our building for sunning duties. Oona had a bad case of jaundice and we were trying to beat it with sun. (Unfortunately, it was the stormy season so Oona still ended up in the hospital.)

RF would also be always be singing to Oona (more than I would be) and I often found them asleep together, surrounded by pillows. I think he almost always sings himself to sleep sooner than Oona and the baby would fall asleep to his snoring. Hehe!

The invitation for Oona's Godparents. Since they're all beloved oddballs, we christened them Oona's Fairy Oddparents (yes, a few are fairy gay and most are gayer than the rest!). I know, I went scrap-crazy over this.

This was the first draft, using a different set. I know it's also cute and so HAPPY, what with Oona's laugh and the summery feel of the colors...but the whimsical theme kinda won out. It was more in keeping with being a kid. This one is a little bit too grown-up, I guess.

I still want to use this layout for something though. It's too happy to pass up.

about

Laya Garcellano-Florendo is a scrapaholic in remission.
She tried to beat the addiction through blogging, but as you can see, it's only gotten worse. She totally blames her husband who's trigger-happy with the camera phone and their adorable tots who are just really way too cute.